Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Recently, I have been thinking about my Christian friend,
Na’im, who lives in Jerusalem.
It is his home. He was born there and has never lived any where else. He is a citizen of Israel, but not a “national.” This is hard for me to understand having
grown up in America
where every citizen belongs to the nation. Not so in Israel. Only Jews belong to the
nation. Citizen Na’im lives every day
under separate laws and privileges.

What if I believed the political discharge of every presidential
candidate about how wonderful Israel
is and its being the “only democracy in the Middle East,”
and decided to move there to be close to my friend? After all, there is enough violence,
corruption, racism and poverty in my daily newspaper to cause one to ask if
there a better place or is the whole world coming apart?” Of course, I would
never move to Israel,
but it does raise an interesting question. What would my life be like in
democratic Israel?

In the first place, I would soon learn that no where in the
Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel will I find the word
democracy. The founders carefully did
not call Israel the Republic of Israel. The idea of a republic carried
too much responsibility. So, until this day, Israel has never declared itself to
be a democracy, not even in its Constitution. In fact, Israel has no
Constitution.

The next thing I would learn is that I could never, ever
become a full citizen of that state. Israel chooses to be a Jewish nation for its
Jewish citizens. It boycotts those
who are not Jews. If I tried to buy a
home I would run into a local culture that is actually proud of its racism. I
would be told in clear terms that I “did not fit the cultural fabric of their
community.” In fact, there is nothing
subtle about the discrimination. I would be told right up front, “We don’t sell
to non-Jews.” Israel not only boycotts
individuals, Israel boycotts non-Jewish towns and villages by not providing
community services such as equal education opportunities, garbage pickup,
health care and public safety.

If I tried to enter the labor market, I would find newspapers
advertising jobs for Jews only. Non-Jews need not apply. When I wanted to take my grandchildren for a
swim, I would find the public pools and parks closed to me.

I would never be allowed to live in a settlement, even
though my U.S.
tax dollars paid for their construction, nor would I be safe living near
one. Settlers are into burning. They
burn trees, cars, churches and schools. Sometimes, they even set fire to people
with impunity.

And where did I get this image of life for a non-Jew in Israel? From
David Sheen, a journalist, writer and filmmaker originally from Toronto,
Canada, now living in Dimona, Israel, a Jewish citizen of Israel, who holds a
greater respect for the ethical dimension of his faith than for the psychotic State
of Israel.

I would learn that by law, 93 percent of the land in Israel is
reserved for Jews only and bans non-Jews from leasing it. Another law ensures
that if an Israeli citizen marries a Palestinian who is not an Israeli citizen
they will not be allowed to live together. If I enrolled my child in a school
that teaches the real history of 1948, the ministry of finance will withhold
funds from my school.[1] In Israel,
no matter what I witnessed or believed, I would learn that I am not free to
criticize Israel.

Our politicians “love” to talk about Israel and they
see it as they choose it to be. But if they
lived there, even for a short time, they might take a second look. They might
even be able to acknowledge that Palestine is
occupied and that Gaza
is being massacred. But, let’s not
expect too much. After all, it’s an
election year.

Thomas Are

November 17, 2015

[1] See
Donald Wagner and Walter Davis, Zionism,
and the Quest for Justice in the Holy Land. (Pickwick Publications 2014) p.48

Saturday, November 7, 2015

In the first, I was watching a boxing match between a “defender”
and a “terrorist”. The defender was
wearing brass knuckles, carried a club, wore a helmet and danced freely around
the ring. On the other side, the terrorist had only one arm, was forced to stay
within a six foot circle, had no head protection, and was about a tenth the
size of the defender. To top it off, the
referee was the defender’s Uncle Sam.

My second nightmare was when I woke up and realized that it
was not a dream. It is what is commonly
referred to in the U.S. as the
“Peace Process” between Israel
and Palestine. Our politicians and news pundits keep saying
over and over again, “We must get the Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiation
table. They must work out a peace plan between the two of them.”

Such a dream is a nightmare.

But, it is real life to about 4 million Palestinians living
in some of the worst conditions anywhere on the planet. It is watching helpless as your land is
stolen from you to build Jewish settlements connected by Jewish only roads. It
is struggling to find water. It is having
the road on which you live blocked by walls and barriers and check points
controlled by a power determined to make your life so miserable that you will
leave or die.

A YWCA of Palestine Action Alert reports:

Four Palestinians, ages 13-19 have
been executed in less than 32 hours. Over 500 have been injured just since
Saturday, October 3rd. More than forty have been shot with live
ammunition while another 150 or more shot with rubber bullets. Fourteen
ambulances have been attacked. It is for all these reasons that the Red Crescent has
declared a “state of Emergency.” We call it the Endless State of Emergency.

Writing for the Alert, Marc Ellis continues:

Many of those killed were innocent of the alleged crimes
they were said to have committed. They were children coming home from school
like 13 year old Abed Al-Raham Obeidallah who was shot in the Aida Refugee Camp
or Hadeel Al-Hashlamon, an 18 year old young woman trying to cross the Hebron checkpoint. She
was shot 10 times and left to bleed out. Later her ambulance was met by her
father, the doctor on duty on the eve of the Jewish Holiday, the Atonement or
what Jews call Yom Kippur who had to pronounce the death of his own daughter.
In one case one of the alleged “terrorists”, Fadi Alloun, 19 years old, was
going home and was gunned down by the police in Jerusalem when he approached
them for help against an angry mob of settlers calling, “Death to Arabs” in
Jerusalem.[1]

Perhaps the worse part of the nightmare is not the massacres
and bombardments that rain down every few years. The worst of it is having your
name smeared as a terrorist, deserving to be punished, while those who harass you
are lifted up as moral heroes.

So, get back in the ring, the U.S.
says to the Palestinians, as it throws its full weight and support behind Israel. It is
the only hope you have of fulfilling your dream of being a respected and
prosperous people. But to the
Palestinian, it is no longer a dream. It is not even a nightmare. It is the
only life they are allowed to live.

Thomas L. Are

I preached for forty three years in the Presbyterian Church before retiring. If anyone would ever refer to me as a Liberation Theologian, I would be pleased. I started blogging several years ago to express my political and religious concern for justice, especially justice for the Palestinians.